


I've Come To Talk With You Again

by AlyssiaInWonderland



Category: The Gods Are Bastards - D. D. Webb
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Crushes, F/M, Gabriel Is Having A Bad Time, Gen, It goes surprisingly well, Light Angst, Post Arc 14, References to Depression, Trissiny Talks About Feelings, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/AlyssiaInWonderland
Summary: Following Scyllith's intentionally cruel airing of Toby's sexuality and Trissiny's private feelings, Gabriel finds a spot on campus to brood about her seeming delight in his actions. Trissiny faces up to the biggest battle she's ever experienced, and talks to him about what happened.It works out surprisingly well, even if they're both awkward.
Relationships: Trissiel, Trissiny Avelea/Gabriel Arquin
Kudos: 4





	I've Come To Talk With You Again

**Author's Note:**

> NB I've only read up to the end of Arc 14 so this is possibly extremely non-canon!

She found Gabriel sitting on the patch of grass on campus that overlooked the mountain’s rocky tumble down into Last Rock. Once, it had been infamous among people who were not her, for being the make-out spot, and to her as a handy shortcut to the dining hall. Now, with the mark of the Sleeper imprinted on the student body, it wasn’t seeing much use; the isolation that made it popular now rendering it ironically unattractive.

She hadn’t exactly intended to find him; especially not here, where the potential of their meeting was so loaded with awkward assumptions. Still, she didn’t have it in herself to abandon him to whatever was making him stare over the landscape quite so morosely - even if she’d been heading to the dining hall to collect some frozen custard and mope with Ruda about her terrible, terrible track record for sinking her dating options before they’d even started dating. She was the paladin for the goddess of justice, women and war. She could face attempting to comfort her almost-something friend and his sarcastic talking sword.

She seriously considered tiptoeing away. Before she remembered that Gabriel’s Valkyries had probably seen her, and that she had faced battles by his side that would mean she should be ashamed if she couldn’t do something as simple as be there for a friend. She steeled herself, took a deep breath, and walked over to sit next to him, as nonchalantly as she knew how. She felt a moment of satisfaction when her Eserite training kept her movements far looser than a march. She used that feeling to turn to Gabriel and smile, if somewhat mutedly.

“Some quest, huh.” She commented, as idly as she could. Tallie would have been so proud of her use of filler words to seem more approachable. So would - she looked away, ignoring the pang of pain in her chest at the thought. 

Gabriel turned to look at her, his movement almost lethargic. He looked so tired, Trissiny realised, suddenly. Tired, and sad. His green coat seemed to be wearing him more than the other way around, and Ariel was unbuckled from his belt, lying sheathed on the grass near his right hand. Silent, for once in her existence.

She cursed herself repeatedly as her heart skipped a beat when he raised an eyebrow at her, and huffed out a soft laugh. His eyes were so - she cut off her thoughts and listened to his words instead. “Did they teach you that in the Thieves Guild?”

“I still haven’t got the hang of seeming at ease.” She acknowledged.

“Ironic, really.” Gabriel smirked, something of his usual animation coming forward in the line of making a terrible pun. “Someone trained in the military ought to be capable of being  _ at ease _ .”

“No.” Trissiny and Ariel both spoke up, simultaneously, in the exact same unimpressed tone.

“Hey, I thought it was funny!” Gabriel held his hands up in defeat. “Can’t a guy make terrible jokes to distract from his feelings?”

“I don’t think anything in the world could stop you from trying. But really - what’s going on?”

“You’re right. It was one hell of a quest - pun intended. I mean, when my trip to literal hell wasn’t the worst part of it, you know it was messed up.” He said, darkly.

“I think the worst part,” Trissiny agreed, carefully, “Was that not everything she said was a lie.” 

“I knew,” Gabriel said, quickly enough for his response to feel sudden, disjointed from the gentle tone she had been using, to coax him into speaking. “I found out when we were thirteen. He never -” Gabriel broke off, frowning at the sky like he could contact Ouvis that way. “I knew Toby didn’t find it easy, that he wanted it to be private, but I honestly thought it would be me who screwed up and said something by accident because I’m chronically incapable of discretion. I never thought…”

“That your best friend would be outed by the goddess of cruelty and hell?” Trissiny finished, for him. “I can see why that didn’t enter into your imaginings.”

“She picked at the things she knew would hurt the most, Tris. She wasn’t messing around - or she was, but to her that meant going right for the kill. Which means that Toby was scared. This whole time, he wasn’t just being private about it, he was torturing himself, and I was too wrapped up in my own mess to notice until it was too late.” Gabriel’s voice was filled with a level of disgust and recrimination that she had hardly heard since their first semester.

“Gabe-” Trissiny began, but it seemed he’d broached the topic and the words kept flowing out

“I can’t help but wonder, you see. If he was so scared because he thought that if he said anything, his cult wouldn’t stand by him. That  _ I _ wouldn’t stand by him.” Gabriel paused, and sighed. “And all of it is so self-centred of me. Tellwyrn would be horrified. She was so adamant that I needed to grow up and get my head out of my own ass, and she was right. But here I am, a year later, still being an ass.”

“You’re not an ass.” Trissiny spotted an opportunity for some humour, and grinned. “Well, not for this, anyway.” She gave him a gentle shove, which he returned. “But you’re also not wrong. You are being a bit self-centred about this, because if you think Toby’s entire decision to keep quiet was about you then either you have a crush on the man, or you have no sense of perspective. I hardly think Toby would stand for having a best friend who he suspected of being homophobic. Nor would I.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” She gave up on subtlety. “And I can’t help but think that all this brooding isn’t really about that. I know none of us say it much, but you  _ have _ matured since our first year, Gabe. But you said it earlier - you’re reverting to how you used to behave right now. It’s worrying.”

“No, what’s worrying is that of the three of us, I was the only one who got complimented and nothing else. In other circumstances that would be grounds for celebration, but given it was her? She mocked you, she outed Toby, and the worst thing she could do to me is tell me I’m doing great? I mean, what am I meant to think of that, except that I’m a failure?”

“I know some of what she said was true, but that doesn’t mean all of it was. That’s what the best liars do. They take some true things and twist lies around them. She’s the goddess of cruelty, and she came after us with what hurts the most - not just personally but interpersonally, too.”

“Yeah, I get it. She’s just thrilled that I’m screwing up my job as paladin.” Gabriel blinked. “You don’t mean that. You meant that that part was the lie.”

“Well,” Trissiny looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “I certainly know better by now than to try to comfort someone with a general message of ‘yes, you do suck, actually’”. Her attempt at adding some levity fell flat.

“I won that bet we never made, then.” Ariel’s voice piped up from beside them, making them both jump.

“Ariel, shut it.” Gabriel hissed, his almost composed melancholy giving way to something amusingly like embarrassment. 

“I told you, Gabriel. That girl has a powerful need for your appro-” Ariel’s voice was cut off as Gabriel picked her up, and unceremoniously flung her over the wall behind them and into the courtyard beyond.

“Um.” Gabriel seemed shocked at his own actions, his eyes wide and, for the first time, properly present in the moment. He didn’t seem to know what to say, his hands still hovering in front of him, as if unsure where to rest. He cast a guilty glance backward, though he couldn’t exactly check on Ariel with the wall in the way. He seemed to physically cringe away from the sheer awkwardness of having just flung his weapon away, on some impulsive but misguided attempt to save Trissiny’s dignity from being insulted by the extemporations of his sociopathic sword.

The ensuing quiet seemed somehow amused.

“I don’t expect anything from you.” Trissiny broke the silence because anything was better than the oppressive awkwardness, and immediately regretted it when she found she kept talking. “I wasn’t even going to tell you - it’s not like anything can happen, I know that. And we’re both paladins anyway, and I nearly messed up my friendship with Toby that way so I don’t - oh gods why am I still talking?” She furiously ignored the flush on her cheeks, taking all of her military poise to keep herself from burying her face in her hands.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think this might be the first time in all my interactions with hot women that it’s not me who is tongue-tied.” Gabriel looked like he immediately regretted his snark, but Trissiny seized the chance to bail herself out of her rapidly sinking ship.

“If I’ve learned anything from observing you and women, it is that you usually rely on your babbling to be endearing.” She acknowledged.

Gabriel feigned a wounded expression, and she snorted, rolling her eyes. “Oh please, you can’t be too upset. I’m hardly your type.”

“Since you somehow haven’t noticed, Tris, I kind of have a tendency to like women who could crush me. I - I can’t say I wasn’t surprised, but...apart from that, I’m not sure why you’d think I’d be anything less than flattered.”

“The potential for awkwardness might have given me more than a few moment’s pause.” She admitted. “And the potential for rejection. Humiliation. Laughter. And so on.” Steadfastly ignoring the idea he might be flattered seemed to use up enough of her concentration that she was able to talk instead of falling silent and imploding, but it was a close contest.

“It sounds stupid, but I guess I just never realised you might feel like that. You’ve always seemed so...certain, and self-possessed. The idea you might like me, let alone be nervous to say so? It honestly never occurred to me.”

“Even with whatever weird bet Ariel cooked up?” Trissiny asked, curious despite herself.

“If I ever put weight on Ariel’s observations that aren’t strictly to do with logic, Ruda will have to fuckin’ stab me. Again.” He looked away, and seemed to steel himself to explain. “She kept telling me that you held me in esteem. I never really believed it.”

“Why?” Trissiny tilted her head to one side. “We’ve studied and fought together for a reasonable amount of time. I know I acted terribly when we first met, but once I - well, to use your terminology, got my head out of my ass - I thought it was clear that I respect you.”

“But - why?” Gabriel stared at her, thoroughly bemused by her regard for him in a way that hit her, hard. He really, truly didn’t seem to think that he was worth notice.

“Justice is only as good as the morality set against which it is enforced.” She explained.

“Uh-”

“It’s relevant.” Trissiny glared at him, and Gabriel subsided, watching her with an intensity that made her feel more than a little strange. “I used to think that it was simple, with right and wrong, clearly defined for me. Sometimes it still is. But I’ve been forced to confront, time and again, the fact that my idea of justice is vulnerable to my biases.”

“Sup.” Gabriel waved at her, and she narrowed her eyes at him, ruining the effect totally by smiling at how he recognised himself in her narrative.

“I can’t afford that weakness - I have some degree of power, and I want to use it to make the world better. But what I can’t figure out is how to do that, to reconcile the necessity of punishment in justice with the fact I don’t always know if I have the judgement to do so proportionately and fairly.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, and she preempted his likely question.

“I don’t think justice is the issue, obviously. But being hu- a person, making mistakes, is something I don’t have the luxury of doing. I’m a paladin, I have to be better than my instincts and impulses. I can’t let my actions for justice become too inflexible, too black and white, because the world is full of grey areas that I was never equipped to handle with the grace I ought to have. It can be overwhelming, to no longer know if I’m truly right.” She took a breath, and met his eyes, seriously. “And that’s when I look to you.”

“To me? I’m not exactly the best example to follow if you want to be less impulsive, Tris.” Gabriel tried to shrug off the weight to her words.

“No,” She conceded, with unguarded laughter. “But you challenge me. You remind me that I’m not always right, because while you are impulsive, you don’t have the trained perspectives that I do. You see the world as it is, unfiltered, not what you expect to see. And you say what you mean. Even if sometimes that leads to things like sassing a god.”

“Even if.” Gabriel confirmed, and smiled at her. He finally seemed a little like his old - or rather, newer - self. “It’s weird to think that despite what everyone, including myself, tells me, my inability to consistently use masks is apparently not important to the people who really matter.”

“Masks?” Trissiny’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Oh yeah, I figured them out, kind of. It’s almost bardic, in a way, and that reminds me I need to talk to Teal about it, actually - and Vadrieny. I used it when I spoke to Ellial. But anyway, between that, Vidius saying he wants me to shake things up, Toby never minding my perpetual idiocy, our class, and you, well. Maybe I’m not doing so badly, after all.”

“Of course you’re not doing badly.” Trissiny smiled, gently. “Scyllith wanted to make you doubt yourself - that’s always been your fear. The idea that you’re not good enough. But you are. You even used a Vidian technique to talk to Ellial, if I understood that correctly. That’s no small thing, Gabe. Though I’ve no clue how that would work.”

“I’m not sure how, and I did it.” Gabriel confessed. “But it’s something like borrowing traits from people, I think. Actually, I borrowed you, for a while.”

“Me?”

“I was staring down a goddess, so yes, I did steal your resolve, thank you very much.” He smiled.

“I’m...flattered?” Trissiny wasn’t certain if she was being complimented, but she wasn’t being mocked, either. 

“You should be; it worked.” Gabriel said, looking at her again. Trissiny valiantly fought the urge to look away and blush.

“Thank you, then.” She tried to be graceful about it, but felt clumsy anyway.

“Thank you.” He returned.

“For what?”

“For lots of things,” Gabriel was serious, now, the intensity and genuine care that hid behind his brightness creeping through. “For seeing past the brat I was being when we met, for a start. For seeing me as me, and liking me for it. For coming to talk me out of being a self-loathing idiot, even when it probably felt awful after what Scyllith did to you.” He smiled again, gently. “For being you.”

“Pretty much only one of those was hard, and I did seriously consider just walking away. I only stayed to talk because I thought Vestrel would tattle on me.” She dismissed his sincerity, hoping he could see past it into how touched she was. 

“Vestrel wants me to tell you that she would never do such a thing. Unless it was important, or funny.”

“That’s comforting to know.” She commented. “So, you’re okay?”

“Not entirely. But I think I will be.”

“And...we’re still okay, too? I don’t need answers right now, or reciprocation. I just want to make sure I haven’t - that she hasn’t ruined our friendship.”

“I’m not sure how I feel, just yet.” He said. “But there’s no way this will ruin our friendship. You mean too much to me for that, Tris. I promise.”

“Likewise.” Trissiny entirely failed to ignore the warmth his words washed over her.

“So,” He said, in a tone that promised nothing - and everything - good. “You like me, huh?”

“Don’t push it.” She said, flatly, ignoring the grin spreading across her face.

“Or what? You think you can stop me from carrying out my divinely appointed duty to be exceedingly annoying?” Gabriel fell into step with her, cheerfully.

“Why are you following me? Don’t you have an irate sword to collect?”

“Oh,  _ crap _ .”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for TGAB so I hope it's okay and enjoyable! :)


End file.
